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From: jeffrey liegner <liegner@ptd.net>
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Subject: Hacking Civilian Drones: Very Easily Done (Scientific American
 Article)
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Fast Flying and High Altitude Lancair Pilots,

In the recent Scientific American (Nov 2013), on page 56, there is an artic=
le about civilian drones and "Hacking Drones."  The article is fairly compl=
ete (as SciAm usually is), and spotlights some important issues that will e=
ffect the civilian drone program.  The drone vulnerabilites to jamming, spo=
ofing, and interference are significant, and worth studying.  I can imagine=
 that civilians interested in altering the utility of drones will use a num=
ber of easily cobbed together countermeasures.  Some aviators have already =
encountered drones at attitude, and the encounters have been startling to t=
hose pilots.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=3Dbetter-security-measures=
-are-needed-before-drones-roam-the-us-airspace

Better Security Measures Are Needed before Drones Roam U.S. Airspace [Previ=
ew]
Fleets of unmanned aircraft may soon scan terrain for forest fires and deli=
ver FedEx packages. Yet drones' security flaws allow them to be readily hij=
acked with simple technologies

By Kyle Wesson and Todd Humphreys

More than 10,000 unmanned aircraft are expected to be roving the skies by 2=
020 for search and rescue, power-line monitoring, scientific research and o=
ther uses that will become less costly than if the same tasks were carried =
out by humans.
Swarms of drones traversing U.S. airspace pose elaborate security challenge=
s that regulatory agencies are ill prepared to face. The Federal Aviation A=
dministration's traditional role of keeping aircraft from colliding must be=
 extended so that drones cannot be hacked.
Technical steps need to be implemented to ensure that radio signals to guid=
e and control the aircraft are made secure from being hacked or jammed by w=
rongdoers who wish to take over piloting of the aircraft, perhaps to use it=
 as a weapon of terror.
More In This Article

Could Civilian Drones Become Lethal Projectiles?
On August 2, 2010, a U.S. Navy helicopter wandered lazily into the skies of=
 the highly restricted airspace that extends like an invisible dome over th=
e American capital. The event might have merited nothing more than a routin=
e log entry for air-traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationa=
l Airport, except for one disturbing detail. The helicopter had no human pi=
lot. The aircraft had no cutout space for windows, and its cockpit was fill=
ed with nothing more than electronic instrumentation. It was a drone.


The MQ-8B Fire Scout, a 1,429-kilogram, 9.7-meter-long drone, had experienc=
ed what investigators later called a =E2=80=9Csoftware issue,=E2=80=9D wher=
eby its communications link had been severed with human operators, who sat =
helplessly in a ground-control room at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in =
Maryland. To make matters worse, the drone failed to execute software instr=
uctions that would have forced it to return to its base. The Fire Scout, us=
ed for reconnaissance off warships, had wandered into the same airspace tha=
t Air Force One uses when it takes off from and lands at Andrews Air Force =
Base.


This article was originally published with the title Hacking Drones.